Mastec Advanced Technologies Case Summary

1. What was the legal issue in this case? What did the NLRB decide? This case is based on 26 former employees of MasTec Advanced Technologies, Inc. (MasTec), who sued the company alleging that their employment were terminated after an appearance on a TV news show, complaining about unfair new pay formula and the instructions to lie to the customers in order to meet with the telephone lines installations rates. As is mentioned in the textbook in the MasTec Advanced Technologies' case, the new pay formula indicate that the technicians would be paid $2 less for basic and additional outlet installations, but would earn $3.35 for each receiver they connected to phone line. It also indicate that they would incur in a back-charge of $5 for every new non-responding receiver installed during a 30 day period if they failed at least 50% to phone lines. (p.466) The technicians also argued that the phone connection was not always possible because most of the time the customers were not interested.
The legal issue in this case is whether the employees’ disparaging statements to 3rd

I understand that although the companies could prove in court that they suffered substantial losses in sales and revenues from the news program, what is going to determinate the conclusion in this case is whether the employees’ disparaging statements to the TV news show are protected as concerted activity under the National Labor Relations Act or not. Moreover, the employees proved that they tried to resolve the issue with the company and that the company instead, promoted to "do whatever it takes" including lying to customer, in order to meet with their expectations. This evidence it would have been very damaging to the company